1. Homelessness in America
Introduction to
The glass castle
By jeannette walls

2. “Response to Pictures”
“…builds background necessary for a successful reading and helps students practice strategies like inferring the setting situation, characterization, author’s purpose, and how all of this is related to the information and presentation of the photograph.”

3. Photo Reflection: Write a personal reflection to the image.
What would you think if you saw this family on the street?
What kinds of assumptions and judgments would you make?
Have you seen families like this before?
How do you think they feel?

4. SHARE…
Let’s discuss your opinions of that photograph and others similar to it.
Is it fair to make judgments about people based on their appearances?

5. View Homelessness in America video clips
Hard Times Generation: homeless kids 60 minutes CBS news
Homelessness in America Documentary
Student-created Homelessness Documentary

6. From your statistics-
What statistic from the homelessness clips most surprised you?
Circle the most shocking one
Explain your thoughts/feelings

7. Video clip of Jeannette Walls interview with Stephen Colbert
This clip briefly discusses her experiences with homelessness and introduces her memoir, the glass castle.

8. Jeannette Walls
The Glass Castle … a tenuous (fragile), vagabond (beggar) childhood with an alcoholic, Don Quixote of a father; and a homeless, Dumpster-diving mother who was so passive she barely glanced at her children, let alone raised them.
Despite that strange and sorry start, Walls became a successful writer. One whose greatest success came from telling her own story.
“I think it’s a hopeful book,” Walls said of “The Glass Castle” the other day from Washington, D.C. “I was on a panel one time and people said the American Dream was dead. But mine is alive and well.”
And then some. “The Glass Castle,” first released in 2005, spent 261 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list. It is now ranked sixth on the paperback nonfiction list, where it has been for 315 weeks. Eight years, all told.

9. Resources Google Images for photographs
Hard Times Generation: homeless kids 60 minutes CBS news obtained on 12 July
Homelessness in America Documentary obtained on 12 July
Student-created Homelessness Documentary obtained on 12 July